Ninja Lan
by thecrazyfanficcer
Summary: While vacationing in southern Japan some time after Battle Network 1, trouble awakens for eleven year old crimefighter Lan Hikari. Craziness ensues... [pathetic old stuff]
1. Arrival in Japan

**So, as for the dissy, Mega Man belongs to Capcom, not me, and it probably never will, either. Now, on with craziness!**

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A cloud of sand rose and fell under the heat of the arid sun as a dusty truck chugged along a pathway that cut right through the grassy hills of the Bushido Dojo in rural Japan. The truck screeched suddenly to a stop, and the driver clicked open the door.

A tall, sun-tanned man descended the silver steps that had magically flown out when the truck screeched to a halt. Clad in a cameo-coloured shirt and pants, the man adjusted the shades balanced on his nose and waited patiently as the truck's two passengers got out.

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Three people were pursuing the dojo's grassy countryside on their way to the training building itself: Lan Hikari, notorious good guy and evilfighter (odd, even his parents didn't know about it), his mother and their tour guide, a Japanese guy called Yoshiro Nakamura.

"Lan!" Haruka Hikari called impatiently. Lan, being who he was, had done something rash and totally animeish - which is basically secret-agent code for falling into a five-foot ditch.

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Lan: Under no circumstances am I an idiot for falling in that ditch. He is. (glares)

Lloyd: Hey, I am in a video game, you know. Tales of Symphonia!

Lan: So am I.

Lloyd: I still like myself better than you. Not to mention, I'm about six and a half years older, so I'd _have_ to be smarter than you.

Lan: Prove it.

Pikasqueaks: This could get crazy…

Thecrazyfanficcer: (grins evilly) Very crazy indeed, if I do say so myself. Let's watch. It's one PET - do PET's work in Sylvarant? I mean, the Desian base has pretty high tech, you know – versus a two-bladed "Drifting Swordsman."

Lloyd: Very funny, Fanficcer. We all know I'm smarter.

Lan: Ah ha. And yes, I shall throw this blue personal terminal at you. (chunks PET over Lloyd's head)

Lloyd: What in the world? Ah well, might as well do this the easy way.

Fanficcer and Pikasqueaks watch in somewhat horrifying fascination as the sword-wielding teen chases Lan clear into oblivion…

Pikasqueaks: What about the fic?

Thecrazyfanficcer: Oh yeah… Well, whatever. (snaps fingers and Lloyd disappears)

Now, on with the crazy fanfic!

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Lan grinned sheepishly and put one hand on top of the ditch. His mother grinned back, suddenly and evilly, offering one hand to her son so that he was hoisted out of the rut-like hole.

A grin flickered around Yoshiro Nakamura's lips, but once his two customers were both ready and at attention - though one of them was splattered from the collar of his orange jacket to the tips of his black shorts with mud - he gestured from the truck driver to go back to the DenTech trucks-for-hire base.

Yoshiro faced forward, looked back at the other two, then faced the direction of the dojo. "Shall we begin?"

Haruka nodded apologetically, nudging her son's ribs with her elbow. Lan made an expression of mock outrage before nodding when Yoshiro wasn't looking.

"Yes. My son here is - ah - occasionally clumsy. I ask of you to forgive him."

"It is nothing at all, Hikari-san," the tall tour guide replied, reaching up a hand to brush his smooth black hair out of his face. "We get that all the time."

As the trio began their trek up the small slope that led to the more densely populated area of the dojo, Yoshiro began his narrative. "The Bushido Dojo was founded in 1889 (the year Nintendo was first invented! Yay!) by the brothers Shikazu and Kiroji, two young warriors who saw an equal need for peace in the land. Separated at birth but reunited once more in the year preceding the dojo's opening, the two decided to create a building where they could train young warriors in peace and happiness.

"As the years progressed, the dojo flourished into a thriving hive of activity where young warriors could train for the challenges they would face as adults. Even now, in an age where PET's and NetBattling rule all else, the Bushido Dojo ignores these technological advancements and continues its way as it trains talented young people so that they can become warriors of exceptional skill and power. But, once in a while, a piece of advanced technology is found amongst the dormitories' residents." Yoshiro finished his narrative, a smile flickering around his lips again with the last sentence.

As the tall young tour guide went on to explain the scenery of the dojo and more history, Lan found himself zoning out. He avoided further embarrassment by shaking his head to clear himself and glancing nonchalantly at the landscape framing either side of the pathway as the main buildings came more and more into sight. Pink sakura trees had been planted at either side of the road, and if he squinted Lan could see koi ponds every now and then, the colourful leaping fish jumping out of the water as their multicoloured scales glimmered in the dying sunlight.

"And here we are at the actual dojo itself. It's separated in two buildings: the dormitories where the kids sleep and the training school. I'll let you two sleep in the dormitories for tonight, then we'll continue the tour tomorrow. When it's over, you guys are free to do whatever you want," Yoshiro finished, opening the door of the dormitories building with one hand. "For help ask the manager over there," he explained, pointing to a door set in the eastern wall before bowing and making his way out.


	2. Satou Hiroshi: Master of Craziness?

Haruka had already booked a room a few nights before, so all she had to do was tell the manager, a short chubby guy called Kisho Tanaka, their names. So, she pulled Lan none-too-gently over to where the pudgy man was carefully revising a contract.

His head snapped up as soon as they appeared into sightline and the manager flipped the contract into a desk. Kisho nodded and lifted up a large plastic-bound book which lay on a side shelf and flipped through it, pausing at a page that was filled as it was with other names. He traced his finger down the page, at last stopping at Haruka's small, neat signature, and Lan's larger, messier one.

"Hikari Haruka and Netto? Room 841. Here are the keys," Kisho informed them, opening the drawer of his desk and giving Lan a silver chain where a small room key dangled. "Left side, third floor."

Haruka thanked him and proceeded to steer Lan toward the stairs, whose eyes popped as he complained, "Mom, can't we take the elevator?"

Haruka sighed and rolled her eyes, grinning all the while, but she replied with the suspected and non-desired answer: "No, Lan, we're going to climb the stairs and you know it."

The two of them made their way up to the third floor landing on a metallic spiral staircase, and as Lan gazed up at the swirling steps that twisted up ahead of, he was reminded strangely of the spiral staircase in Hogwarts. It seemed to go on for miles and miles, and he wondered just how many students were enrolled at the dojo. Or, as it seemed to be, half hotel half dormitories; more like it was made for guests than ninjas-in-training.

"Well, here we are," Haruka informed him after Lan had slid the room key into the lock, puffing a little as she put her hand on the doorknob and pulled it open. When the swinging of the door had faded into nothingness it revealed a simple-looking two-room suite, but it was here that the hotel-isms faded and it began to look more like overnight quarters. They were looking into what appeared to be a main room, with a sofa, a desk in the corner, and a plasma screen TV built into the wall that was hidden from view by a bull's-eye targetboard. (Well, it _is_ 200X, you know.)

Haruka walked boldly forth, past the sofa and desk and examined the plasma screen TV. She looked purposefully at Lan, who was coming in, as if to say, "Maybe I should take your TV away." Lan blushed and detoured around his mother to the bedroom part of the suite, pulling the room key off its chain and pushing it into the lock with a satisfying click. The door opened and Lan hooked the key back onto its chain before stowing it away in his pocket.

They both walked into the room, which really did look like a dormitory. Three beds had been crammed together, two of them vertical and a little distance apart third one lay sideways across the other two at the far side of the wall. In addition, there was a small bunk bed in a corner and hanging from the ceiling was a hammock.

Lan claimed the hammock right away, jumping into the ragged white fabric suspended from the ceiling so that it swung precariously from his weight. He grabbed the wires that supported it at grinned down at his mother to see her roll her eyes and mutter something unintelligible and claim one of the vertical beds as her own.

Lan watched the ember-orange rays from the dying sunset. It was a glorious sight, puffy periwinkle-coloured clouds streaked past the sun as it cast its rays right into Lan's face, darkening his skin to a healthy orange. Even though there was no wind or anything, his spiky brown hair rippled slightly. Picture it: a guy looking out the window from his hammock, his faced bathed with the colours of the dying sunset, his hair flickering in the nonexistent wind, a strangely serious and totally unorthodox expression on his face.

Then it was over. Lan reached into his pocket and pulled out his sky-blue personal terminal, or PET for short.

Okay. Before I go into detail with the actual plotline and everything, there's something you curious fanfic-readers should know. A fanfic is short for fan fiction, which is what you're reading right now, by the way.

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It's the year 20XX. They have these cool new things called NetNavis. A NetNavi is basically a virtual, talking human built with artificial intelligence that resides in a personal terminal, or PET. Using their NetNavis, people can do what they call "NetBattling," where they pitch one Navi against the other using "BattleChips." They even have official NetBattlers and tournaments. So then there's our guy, Lan Hikari, whose parents, it seems, don't know that him and his friends go NetBattling bad guys every other week, probably according to the traditional rules of cartoons and anime. So that's about it in this futuristic world of sorts. ;)

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Lan pressed a black button on top of the PET so that his NetNavi, Mega Man, came into view, arms crossed and a grin on his face. "So, Lan, eternal king of craziness, what's it like?" he asked deviously.

"The dojo?" Lan asked with an equally evil grin of his own. "It's all right… Maybe it'll get even better tomorrow, after the tour and stuff. I can tell you then, but now I want to e-mail my friends."

"Can do, little buddy, can do." The screen switched out and Lan punched out his friend Dex's e-mail and impatiently waited for him to pick up.

"Hey, Lan." Two faces appeared onscreen, Lan's best friends Dex and Maylu, their arms crossed, grins resplendent, in a way that was annoyingly akin to the way Mega Man had been a few seconds before.

"So, Lan what's it like?" Dex asked, grinning in that mockingly annoying way as his not-so-white teeth glistened in the sunlight. "You having a good time in the country while you leave your best friends in boring old DenTech City with no one to NetBattle?"

Lan threw back his head at the ceiling and groaned loud enough so that his moaning filled the PET's speakers. "I've just got here, for crying out loud, and you're already being sarcastic to me for no absolute reason."

Dex only grinned evilly and crazily, while Maylu nudged him sharply with her elbow. They seemed to be arguing furiously for a minute, with Lan waiting impatiently from the other side of the PET, and then Maylu turned back to the front. Lan admired the way her short fuchsia-coloured hair flicked over her shoulders (wink, wink).

"What Dex means," she began, sarcastically rolling her brown eyes, "is what is the dojo like?"

"It's all right I guess," Lan said, then ruefully glanced out the window. "The pool looks good for swimming, though," he joked. "As fate would have it, I'm sleeping in a hammock tonight. Where are the other two?"

"Yai and Tory?" Dex glanced behind him and the screen shifted to show a pink-red mansion as the chubby, mohawked boy shifted his PET from side to side. There resided Yai Ayano, annoying nine-year old supergenius. "Tory's at Yai's place. Look, you can see them at the window."

For a few seconds, there were walking sounds from where the other two were making their way over to the front of Yai's house. Lan waited until he could see two pale silhouettes in the window. Dex activated the zoom-in camera then, and the figures came into focus so that he could see Yai and their friend Tory Froid. They were looking down, their faces bathed in red light; they must have been in a darkroom of some sort.

"I never knew Tory liked science that much," Lan commented, shifting slightly on the hammock.

Suddenly they both grew very uncomfortable, Dex kicking the ground with his blue sneakers and Maylu biting her lower lip nervously. "See, the thing is…" Maylu began, running a hand through the magenta hair around her ear, where a large pink pin was clipped.

"It's not about the science, see…" Dex continued, glancing nervously up and down from his PET screen and back up again.

"We think they like each other," said Maylu, plucking up her courage. She fiddled with the pin in her hair. "At least, the day after you left they were…doing something. We were just hanging out, you know, going to the Coliseum, you know, get some NetBattling in..."

"And they seemed to be getting closer and closer together while they walked, like they had a crush on each other or something," Dex finished, glancing back down yet again so that his pointed brown mohawk bobbed in the glimmer of the DenTech sunlight.

"You mean like you and Maylu?" Lan said teasingly. Dex turned an unusually deep red and glared back at him.

"But you like her, too!" he protested.

Lan's own face turned a shade equal to the colour of an overripe tomato.

"Yes, I know you both like me," Maylu laughed, grinning as she nudged Dex in the ribs again. "I never knew I was that famous, though."

They both glared at her.

Back in the dojo's dormitory, Lan heard the door swing open and footsteps approaching from behind him. "Sorry, gotta go, guys; someone's coming," he said, quickly shutting off the PET and whipping around, all the while hiding the personal terminal behind his back.

A boy about Lan's own age had come in, stretching his arms and yawning. Judging by his obsidian-black hair and sapphire-blue, eyes he was one of the ninja-in-training, hitting the sack after a hard day's work.

The other boy heard the creaking of the hammock's support wires as Lan whirled around and both boys looked at each other, one from up and one from down, so that Lan's own brown eyes clashed with the boy's deep blue ones.

"You're one of the guests, right?" the boy said with a small smile, walking over to the bunk bed and beginning his ascent on the ladder. "Kisho told me."

"The manager, right?" Lan stuttered, then caught himself just in time and went on. "Do you have guests often, or are me and my mom the first ones?" He pointed the sleeping form of his mother, who shifted slightly.

"Not really," the boy said, coming to the top of the ladder and perching on the side of the bed, so that his legs dangled over the edge.

"I'm Satou Hiroshi, by the way," the boy said, tucking into his bed; he had already had his ninja-print pyjamas on when he had come into the dormitory. They were black and literally emblazoned with at least ten bright white coats-of-arms in the Japanese kanji.

"Hikari Netto," Lan replied, stuffing his PET into his back pocket. He got undressed and both boys fell asleep.


	3. Tourism Travels

"What do we do after the tours, anyway?" Lan wondered aloud the next morning, staring up at the ceiling as he tossed on his pineapple print shirt (it was that same shirt he'd been wearing earlier that year-he, Dex and Tory had had to dress up as girls! But it's a bit complicated. So watch old reruns of MegaMan: NT Warrior for details!). "Yoshiro isn't going let us have a tour the whole night, is he?"

Hiroshi rubbed his sapphire eyes as he tossed on the dojo's traditional ninja-style uniform. "Well, the tours only last until five, Netto. Then you can…well, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but there's a NetBattling station in the basement, right under Kisho's desk on the first floor. I saw you with your PET last night and I think we have something in common," he finished, grinning widely.

"So there _is_ a jack-in port somewhere around here!" Lan declared triumphantly, tossing on his blue headband. "I knew ninja stuff couldn't stand away from the path of technology!"

"It's not only that, Lan," came Mega Man's voice from his PET. "The guests need their luxury too, you know."

Hiroshi nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, but don't tell anyone I told you, OK? I don't want to get in trouble."

"No prob. You _do_ have a Navi, right?"

Grinning almost shyly, the Japanese boy lifted a hand under his bunk and fished out a sky-blue PET, exactly the same as Lan's except that his own crest, a ninja Navi holding a sword against of his dark silhouette, was at the bottom instead of the top. "His name's Fighter," Hiroshi explained. He grinned deviously then, his head lowered slightly so that his jet-black hair covered his forehead and Lan could see his blue eyes shining like sapphires from in behind his dark forelocks.

Lan threw up his own PET and flipped it in midair. "Mega Man," he introduced, catching it neatly before tucking it away into his shorts' back pocket.

Hiroshi shook his hair away from his face as though he was afraid he'd be seen like that before continuing. "They're going to test you, you know."

"Test me?" Lan wondered, scratching his mass of spiky brown hair. "What do you mean, they're going to test me?"  
Hiroshi gave an annoying, devious and possibly evil grin as he stuffed Fighter's PET up his pocket. "The first time I went here, they did it to me too. There's a village a few miles away from the dojo, and I lived there, right? So one day I was just exploring - I'd seen the dojo before but wanted a closer look - and they saw me. Things brightened up from there. You get the picture."

"They made you a ninja-in-training?" Lan asked, impressed. "Who's 'they?' "

"The boss." Hiroshi gave a shrug, as if he didn't care. There's this man who runs the dojo. His name's Haru something-or-other, and if you're on a tour or he sees you or something, he'll set you up against some ninjas at beginner level. He says there aren't enough ninjas in the world, apparently."

"Weird," Lan muttered, then shrugged. He paused for a second before swinging his legs over the edge of the hammock. Lan looked down into the dormitory's spiralling depths, freaking out, his brown eyes wide open. He scooted across the white fabric.

Hiroshi laughed. "Yeah, that happens a lot," he said, clambering down from his own bunk. "You're supposed to grab the wires on your way down, then jump."

Lan grabbed one of the hammock's support wires in his right hand, taking one of the others with his left. He swung himself over the edge of the hammock, which sagged with his weight.

Hiroshi laughed. "Putting on the pounds, have you?" he joked. "Just kidding. Now jump."

Lan swung his legs in the air, jumping and landing on his bare feet. "When does the tour start today?"

The other boy checked his watch. "Right about now, in fact."

Lan groaned.


	4. Katanas!

"The dojo is in the shape of a pagoda, a traditional Japanese temple," Yoshiro announced later that morning ("Later" being exactly one hour five minutes three seconds instead of the two hours, as it was with Lan Hikari), tossing his smooth black hair back as he adjusted his dark sunglasses.

"What kind of stuff do you do in there?" Lan asked the young tour guide, unsuccessfully standing on tiptoe to try to see behind his mom.

"Different types of martial arts, and the focusing of the mental and spiritual energies, Netto-kun," Yoshiro answered. Lan didn't know what he meant by "focusing of the mental and spiritual energies" meant (eleven years old and he doesn't know yet?), but he didn't want to ask for fear of making the tour any longer.

Yoshiro walked all the way to the door of the temple-shaped dojo and turned around and winked through his shades before reaching for a golden key around his neck. Tongue sticking out of his mouth, he looked up thoughtfully as he unlocked the door.

They walked into a room that was all about ninjas-in-training. It was divided off into about five separate sections, each one featuring about fifteen kids practicing different kinds of martial arts. Lan looked around so fast so that his spiky hair whirled; his headband came loose and he was forced to straighten it around his head.

"What are they doing?" Haruka asked, pointing to where one of the groups was practicing with - was Lan seeing properly? - swords!

Yoshiro nodded, a grin flicking around his lips. "They're practicing with katanas, which is the kind of sword we use here at the Bushido Dojo. Shikazu and Kiroji, when they founded the dojo, decided that only students of the second year would use the katana. However, it is many years before even the most experienced ninjas-in-training can use them with expertise and care. Indeed, even some professional ninjas have trouble."

Lan was watching the kids with the katanas, salivating at the mouth.

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Lan: Whoa, whoa. Hold it! Did you say I was salivating? What am I, a dog with rabies?

Pikasqueaks: Ooh! You actually know what 'salivating' means? Good job! (winks annoyingly) As for the dog question, no, you're more like Homer Simpson thinking about donuts.

Lan: Why you little-!

Pikasqueaks: (grinning now) You see? Now you're even acting like him!

Lan: Gr…

Thecrazyfanficcer: You know, Pikachu, you shouldn't say that.

Pikasqueaks: Odd…There was no sarcasm in that sentence. Why?

Thecrazyfanficcer: Because if he was _really_ like Homer Simpson, he would be strangling you right now.

Mega Man: (appearing in a puff of smoke) If you ask me, we're _all_ acting like Homer Simpson.

Lan: Hey! Cool! My Navi's in the real world! Cool! (starts poking him)

Mega Man: (rolling his eyes) No, Lan, it's called character interreaction and as soon as this script thing ends, I am officially disappearing in another puff of smoke.

Lan: (watches sadly as his Navi disappears in another puff of smoke) But it's not over yet!

Pikasqueaks: Hah! Shame on you, Lan Hikari!

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Anyway, even though the fake, Pikasqueaks-ish side of me would be ecstatic right now, I, as a normal person, think it is time to snap back into reality. Well, okay, fandom. Whatever. Anyway, Lan stood stock-still, paralysed or something, head laid back, eyes zoned out, salivating at the mouth. Haruka rolled her eyes and pointed at her dazed-out son, a small groan escaping her lips. Yoshiro smiled, took hold of Lan's shoulders and steered him ahead.

"This'll take care of Netto," Yoshiro muttered to Haruka, doing that annoying grinning-thing again. "Watch and learn, Hikari-san, watch and learn."


	5. Horace Rickman Mortimer Goes Japan

_MEANWHILE…_

Haru Sakamoto stared at the gigantic plasma-screen TV in front of him, then glanced quickly at the guards standing at attention behind him. Grinning, he licked his lips at glanced hungrily at the party of three walking from the dojo's main entrance all the way to the training room.

"Good think it's far," Haru said lazily, plopping himself down on his La-Z-Boy (do they have La-Z-Boys in Japan?) and grabbed a remote control from his sofaside table. "I want to discuss the options I have with this boy while Nakamura goes to test him."

"You know, this isn't such a good idea. I mean, Yoshiro isn't even a bad guy," the head guard, Ayame Kobayashi, said, biting her lip. It was tough to become head guard for anyone - even a lazy guy like Haru - and even more so if you were a girl.

"Yeah, so? I mean, it's all the better for me," the bad boss of Bushido said, clicking off the surveillance camera tape from the main screen and opening it to his satellite TV. He flicked the small gray surf-button on the remote till he came to Disney Channel, where he sat up a little straighter, watching with attention to Lilo and Stitch.

Ayame rolled her eyes. Why was it that Haru liked watching Disney Channel? That might be normal for any other seventy-one year old spending time with their grandchildren, but not for a megalomaniacal and possibly demented guy who wanted to conquer the modern world of 200X, Navi-less to top it off. "Strategically, it might be all the better for you, but I'm talking about guilt and whether you have a heart or not." She frowned when he didn't answer. "You're not helping anyone with this, you know."

"The problem with you, Kobayashi, is that you're too nice. You always want to be nice to other people, put yourself in their shoes. But we're bad guys, Kobayashi. We don't need to care about other people." Haru gave his pathetic reply, curling up on the couch as he did so. "You get it, Ayame?"

It was a special thing when Haru called her by her first name, but to Ayame it meant nothing. She was really a good guy in disguise anyway, being a spy for the good side, and she had to warn that kid, Hikari Netto, somehow. "Sakamoto-san…"

"End of story," Haru said, reaching for a bottle of strawberry-kiwi smoothie he'd left on a side table.

Ayame sighed. When Haru reached for a smoothie, it really was the end of story.


	6. The Bad Guys' Revenge

_MEANWHILE… _Again! Yes! I know!

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He stared at his gigantic plasma surveillance cam screen, his head lowered, his eyes lethal. The mad scientist was on the verge of bringing out his true colours, but he had to watch that lazy guy Sakamoto – actually, he was Mortimer in Wily's eyes - rake in all of his triumph from getting the Hikari boy. Eventually, Dr. Albert W. Wily pulled his face away from the screen, so slowly, so dangerously, it was almost annoying.

"He stole that Hikari kid from me!" Wily yelled angrily, turning back to the screen and pounding his fists on the smooth plastic. "His real name is Horace, for crying out loud! Horace Rickman Mortimer!"

"You know, Wily, just because someone actually took your business away from you for once doesn't mean he's got bad ideas," one of Wily's assistants, Maddy something-or-other, said, swinging her legs from where she was perched on Wily's wardrobe. She shook her pink hair and glanced at the screen. "If you ask me, he's even lazier than you. That I truly do not get."

Count Zap, one of Wily's other guys, came forward, sucking on a spoonful of peanut butter. "Maddy's got a point about that, you know. I mean, Wily, you're eighty-nine and you're getting mad at a screen."

"Could guys be quiet already?" came a voice down the hallway. A door slammed, and Wily, Maddy and Count Zap could just see the blurred form of their local yoga-guy Yahoot disappearing into his room.

"Not again!" Wily called back, his anger disappearing. As soon as the door's slam faded into the distance, he turned back to the others. "I swear, that guy looks like Dhalsim from Street Fighter."

"What's he doing anyway?" COunt Zap wondered; it's a weird thing to see a baddy thinking, especially if he has spiky yellow hair. "Practicing yoga with Magic Man again?"

"I only liked the time where he hypnotised everyone over the TV. That was funny." Wily gave a hoot of laughter, the case of Haru Sakamoto, aka Horace Mortimer, temporarily (I said temporarily) forgotten. "Oh, and why in the world is Zap eating out of a jar of peanut butter?"

"Hey, it's good!" Count Zap protested feebly, but Maddy cut him off.

"Speaking of which, if we're all here and he's over there," she commented, looking around furtively, "Where's Mr. Match?"

"Right here," came a Scottish voice from behind, and the three of them turned to see Mr. Match, their last buddy, jumping down from the wardrobe Maddy had previously been occupying. He was sweeping his long stream of bright red hair behind him before tying it up into a ponytail, as always. "Now, if there's one thing I don't get is why I'm the first guy the good guys fought and yet I'm smarter than Wily." With that, he jumped down from the wardrobe.

"For obvious reasons," came a voice from above, and the four of them looked to see a small figure appearing on the wardrobe. Not Maddy or Mr. Match this time, but a small canine figure; he looked like that beautiful Navi (sigh) Roll's dog Rush, only instead of brown, his fur was black.

"See, the thing is, at the end of the game you're supposed to fight one guy who's incredibly dumb, but, then again, who's an incredibly strong Navi," the Dark Rush said in a rush, running one of his round paws past his floppy ears. "Actually, now that you mention it, his name is Bass.EXE and he's only dumb in Fanficcer's stories," he finished, a little breathless as he cocked his head to the side.

"The game?" Mr. Match asked. "What do you mean, the game? And why is a little dark Rush-thingy appearing to us?"

"First of all, I'm not a dark Rush, I'm a fatedog," he replied, raising one eyebrow. Then he seemed to be thinking about something, one paw on his mouth. "Okay. This is a little complicated. First of all, you guys are in an alternate universe. All the people, all the animals in this universe, all created by the people in the other universe. You guys are from a TV show called MegaMan: NT Warrior, which is based on a game series called MegaMan: Battle Network, which in turn is based on an older series of video games called just Mega Man… And at the moment someone, under the name of Thecrazyfanficcer, is writing a fanfic about you. In short that's it; every time someone writes a fanfic about you guys, you'll live through it, but forget it the next day." Finished, the Dark Rush looked pleased with himself.

"Wait a minute… Are you saying that annoying Navi Mega Man has games about him! And what's a fanfic?" Wily reached forward to grab the Dark Rush, but he only twisted out of the way and disappeared, appearing suddenly on Maddy's pink head, where he did a cool little twisty dance.

"Twist again like you did last summer," he sang, jumping onto the wardrobe as Wily reached for him again. "And you can't hurt me, by the way."

"But what _is_ a fanfic?" Maddy pressed, her eyes bright and intense.

"Oh, it's when fans write stories about their favourite book, video game, TV show, cartoon and/or movie, etc," the Dark Rush explained, grinning most annoyingly at Wily, who moaned and lunged for him again. His efforts were in vain, as they would always be in the times that would come to be.

And so it was an angry Wily that chased the annoying fatedog around the room, who only danced away, all the while singing disco songs at absolute random.


	7. Supreme Craziness

Yoshiro handed Lan a katana. The eleven year-old rubbed his right hand on the lightweight blade, amazed. "We'll let you fight the boss himself, eh, Netto-kun?" Yoshiro joked, reaching for a walkie-talkie shoved up his belt. He pressed the talk button, holding the speaker to his ear.

Lan slashed with the blade. It seemed to mix with the very air itself, and made Lan think of something that went: shining wind.

A door in front of them slid open. In glided Haru, the _supposedly_ good guy boss of Bushido. He was clad in a kimono that trailed all the way on the floor around his rounded bulk, so that he looked oddly like a futuristic form of Ganondorf (Well, okay. His hair wasn't red, but whatever).

Lan looked at the katana at Haru's side, then jumped back a pace. No way was he going to fight this (probably) insanely demented guy.

Yoshiro introduced the boss, but he noticed an evil glint in his dark eye. "This is Sakamoto Haru, Netto. He owns the dojo."

"Just a little fight, hm?" Haru said, unsheathing his own katana. "No tricks." _But definitely treats, _he thought evilly, and could not help the small smile of evil covering his face.

Lan saw the small evil smile and jumped back another pace. As soon as Haru brought the blade down on Lan, the boy used all his NetBattling reflexes and lifted up his own katana, so that they clashed, making a wind chime-type clanging sound.

Haru frowned slightly, raising his katana for the attack. Again, Lan countered, steadying the handle of his sword with both hands. When the bad boss tried a third time, instead of countering, instead of blocking, Lan twisted artfully and poked his blade directly on Haru's chest.

That Hikari boy really was good. Haru fell to the ground, clutching his chest. So all those years of drinking smoothies and watching Disney Channel _had _made their mark on his body, after all.

The fight was interrupted, however, by a certain party running after Haru. A party of his long-time archnemesis, Dr. Albert W. Wily, and Haru's own head guard, Ayame Kobayashi, along with the other guards and Wily's cohorts. The contenders whipped around, shock and amazement registering on Wily and Lan's faces, respectively.

Joy filled Lan's being. Here were his worst enemies in the world, turning up with a traitor to the bad side and they were all on Haru, who he supposed, must have been a bad guy in reality. (Oh, so_ that_ explained the evil smile).

The little group swarmed down on Haru, kicking his kneeling form so many times that he fell to the pavement. They did that for a few minutes, then Ayame's voice rose above the ninja yells.

"Hah! This is for all those times you ignored me, Horace Rickman Mortimer!" she shouted, kicking him even harder. "And speaking of which, I'm really a good guy! Take that!"

"Yeah! And take this, Mortimer, for being by arch-nemesis!" Wily yelled, grinding his foot right in the middle of the fallen man's back.

In the general battle mêlée with Lan's enemies attacking Haru, Lan gave a crazed victory cry, jumping up so that the katana skittered to the floor. But another cry rang out, one that definitely belonged to a crazed old scientist.

"Dark Rush! Where are yooooooou?"

In the corner, the Dark Rush appeared in a black whirlwind. "Right here, Wily, right here," he said, grinning evilly as he joined the fray.


	8. The Dark Rush is so Annoying

The beginning of the end for this fanfic, but not for Mega Man. At least, I hope not! Hopefully K.I. and his band of Capcom-ers will continue making Mega Man games, especially Battle Network ones! Well, new games are always good, too. Not to mention, I don't own Mega Man and all related indicia, but I must say this: rock on, Mega buddy:-)

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Suffice to say, Albert W. Wily was annoyed.

Very annoyed.

"Dark Rush!" he called to the elusive fatedog, pounding his fists on the smooth white plastic of the airplane's sides. It was a sleek metallic jet, named NetComfort and endorsed by the Grand Prix. As he returned to his ol' headquarters somewhere near DenTech, Wily noted the annoying dangers the dark-coloured dog would bring and was now seething, teeth bared, as the Dark Rush appeared in a cloud of smoke in front of him.

"What?" asked the Dark Rush almost boredly, streaking one hand across his shadowed head and floppy ears. "You guys seemed pretty happy fighting Haru out there."

Wily's blue-veined hand paused from where it was suspended in midair, preparing to grapple with the Dark Rush. "Well, I suppose…" He trailed off as his hand dropped and his cheeks reddened with the flattery. Or maybe it was just honesty. You never could tell with the Dark Rush, after all.

"By the way, you can't hurt me. Nyah, nyah!" The Dark Rush let out a shout as Wily experienced a change of heart and the thick, wrinkled hand came shooting back his way. The Dark Rush avoided his hand with ease, sidestepping in the nick of time. "It's one of my powers, along with floating in the air and this annoying tendency to perch in hair – or wardrobes, if I'm bored."

By now, Wily was sincerely confused. "OK," he reasoned calmly and craftily, trying to take stock of the situation, "So you create fate. Understandable enough. But can you explain to me the thing about fanfics again?"

"Actually, if I create fate or if I just herald it to good guys and bad guys alike is for me to know and you never to find out." This twenty-nine word sentence uttered from his – what, lips? I mean, he's my OC; I should know if he has any lips, but well, yeah… - lips, the Dark Rush then proceeded to jump into Wily's mangy mass of gray locks. "But, yeah, I'll tell you. This is how it starts…"

_MEANWHILE…_

Horace Rickman Mortimer, aka Haru Sakamoto, stared up at the Dark Rush. The little – only in a literal way of course; how could anyone with so much power in that tiny body be considered figuratively small? – fatedog had finished his tale to Wily and was now done with recounting it to the lazy one.

Haru took one last glance behind him. Kobayashi and her legion of guards had all turned traitor and took to the winds after the big "battle" – and as a result of that, his face was now severely bruised and tied up in bandages. Not to mention, the silver crutches now splayed, unused, on his private jet back on the way to London (Yep, he's British, all right) did _not_ help him with his hobbling.

"Right, so we're surviving through adventures every day?" Haru asked now, showing an unusual brilliance when it came to it. "'Cause, seriously, that would be great."

"Not us; we're Fanficcer's OC's," the Dark Rush assured Haru, hopping into his veritable mane of spiky, pale gray hair. "Unless Fanficcer either thinks about us every day or lets other people use us for _their_ stories, that probably won't happen." He snuggled deeper between the hair strands, enough so that they formed a sort of fuzzy nest and brushed against his soft, smooth, dog-shaped body. "But for actual official characters, like in Harry Potter (over 250 000 fanfics? Wicked!), it's quite possible."

"Hey, you! Get out of my hair!" Haru began dancing on the spot as he swatted frantically at the Dark Rush, but the fatedog refused to give in. He twisted and turned furiously for a second, but, when it gave no yield, crashed across the green sofa. The crutches, which had been leaning up neatly against the armrest (thanks to the jet's pilot, of course; Haru was too lazy to do that sort of thing), were knocked down in the process.

"Fatedogs are heavy, aren't they?" the Dark Rush grinned, lazily rolling over. He was still snugly nestled in Haru's gray-white mop; only his eyes and the tip of his snout emerged from the surface. "I would drive you up the wall with my sarcasm right now, except: A) I'm too comfortable, and B), you can't run if you get scared; it wouldn't be fair. So, ain't it great?"

Haru paused as the heavy load shifted in his hair, then shrugged it off.

"Kobayashi is _so_ lucky," he murmured to himself. "Am I right?"

He wasn't sure, but he thought he heard the Dark Rush whisper back, "Of course not."

_MEANWHILE (yet again)…_

Ayame Kobayashi shrugged in response to the question her friend and fellow bad guy betrayer, Jinsei Toyama, had just asked.

"You know, I honestly don't know… Maybe we should ask the Dark Rush about it?" Everyone had seen the eccentric fatedog; now why was everyone calling him the same thing? Ah, well, my pen name's The_crazy_fanficcer, you know… No one said it always has to make sense. (grins evilly)

Though the question was a joke in its entirety (and the Dark Rush did know it), he suddenly appeared, floating in the air beside Jinsei's head. Ayame's surprised ally raised his eyebrow enough so that they disappeared into his shock of dyed chocolate-brown hair. "Wow, that was fast."

"Yeah – I had some time to kill," was the Dark Rush's casually-thrown response. "Right, so yeah – you're in a fanfic. Fanficcer also got me to endorse this, but I did it anyway." He smiled slightly, his pointed teeth showing over his lip with the small grin. "Now… ON WITH THE CRAZINESS! MUAHAHAHA!"

They stared as the crazy one began to dance to a mysterious tune that swirled all around them on the still air – stayin' alive? What in the world was that supposed to mean?


End file.
